Next Thursday, October 14th, President Obama will be hosting a youth town hall special on MTV in the hopes of re-rallying his enormous grassroots campaign that swept the nation for the 2008 presidential election. Obama hopes to spark that same sense of hope for the upcoming midterm elections.The president will be before approximately 250 people and obviously television on October 14th at 1pm (PT). The people that will be there are said to be a “broad cross-section of backgrounds, interests and political viewpoints,” by MTV. People unable to attend the 1 hour, commercial-free special will be permitted to ask questions that Obama will answer through Twitter.
I think its not very surprising and pretty expected that Obama is using MTV as a campaigning strategy, because in this previous presidential election, the youth was one of his greatest supporters. I do find it rather hard to imagine a legitimate "town hall feel" where serious issues are discussed on one of America's raciest television stations. I do think it is very encouraging to hope that maybe some American teenagers will willingly watch this special and possibly learn something about our country in replace of watching Snookie eat a pickle or Pauly D and Ronnie sing "Its T-SHIRT TIME!!!!!!" on the Jersey Shore. (or you could do both, I know I will :) hehe)
If you could ask Obama one question, what would you ask? Do you think this MTV special will be effective?
3 comments:
I actually do think this TV special will be quite effective, as a majority of our age group tunes into MTV on a daily basis. I think this is a rather clever idea on Obama's part in order to build up his momentum for the midterm election. That being said, even though it is a brilliant idea, it is true that less people go to to the polls in a midterm election. So, overall this final push may not be effective as we might think.
~Emily Zelter
I think that this TV special program will not be as effective as Obama's campaign back in 2008. He had a lot of support from youth, but what has he really done to help the youth since he was inagurated in January 2009? I feel like he has focused on other issues rather that issues that corcern the youth, which are quite a few, such as budget cuts, the Dream Act, college education, etc. In some way, this TV special might be effective, but I don't think many people will tune in to watch this. I think people will prefer to watch Jersey Shore or The Buried Life (I know I would). :)
This sounds a little interesting to me, but i don't think i'll cut 6th and 7th just to watch Obama on MTV.
His interaction toward the youth through a TV show watched primarily by the youth sounds like it may be effective. But I do agree with how MTV is pretty racist and that it sounds like something funny might be coming up. Does anyone feel worried about this? Like the president would be made a fool of?
The follow up after this event should definitely be another blog post.
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